Lovers of lime

There was an autumnal feel to the day as we followed the footpath up Middlehope Burn. Knapweed, betony and devil's bit scabious were still in bloom on the grassy slopes, but hazel nuts had begun to turn from green to brown in the narrow strip of woodland that flanks the burn. Bunches of scarlet rowan berries dangled over the waterfalls, and downy thistle seed drifted past on the breeze. A little further uphill, at the point where the woodland thins out, we began to climb the fellside. The sound of rushing water grew fainter, replaced by the song of grasshoppers that breed in the short turf that covers the spoil tips. In the 19th century much of this landscape was mined for its minerals, mostly lead, and remaining traces of past industry have become distinctive wildlife habitats. Patches of wild thyme and eyebright flower on the eroded slopes of the spoil tips among the broken fragments of quartz. Watercress blooms and dragonflies breed in the constant trickle of crystal-clear water that flows out from the mine levels, where moorland swallows sometimes build their mud nests against the roof of the horseshoe-shaped tunnel entrances.

One last climb brought us up to the road and to West Rigg opencut, a great chasm in the hillside created by the extraction of ironstone and lead. Here, near the entrance to a roadside lime kiln, we found something special. Purple-blue flowers of felwort, a lime-lover, were beginning to open. Mineral extraction has shaped much of this landscape but here it has permanently changed the chemistry of the land, creating a tiny patch of alkaline soil where this exquisite little flower can flourish.